Details on the girl's slaying reportedly given by the jailed suspect are referred to in an index already given by mistake to one newspaper.
By Associated Press
Published June 26, 2004
SARASOTA - A judge refused Friday to publicly release a document inadvertently given to a reporter in the murder case of an 11-year-old girl.
The document was an index of more than 2,000 pages of investigative reports from the arrest of Joseph P. Smith in the slaying of Carlie Bruscia.
Though the full document won't be released until at least late July, the Office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court this month released the eight-page index to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune - which Clerk of Court Karen E. Rushing said was a "big mistake."
Sarasota Circuit Judge Andrew Owens rejected the Bradenton Herald's argument that any damage done by the document's release would not be exacerbated by public access.
Smith faces first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual battery charges. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Carlie was abducted Feb. 1 while walking home from a friend's house. A car wash surveillance camera recorded a man approaching her, grabbing her arm and leading her away. Smith was arrested two days later.
The document released to the Herald-Tribune said Smith told his brother, who visited him in jail Feb. 5, some details of what had happened and where Carlie's body could be found. The body was found the next day in a wooded area near a church.
Owens said a previous order to keep such documents sealed until defense attorneys had a chance to review them would be compromised if he allowed the public release of the index.
He set a July 20 date for attorneys to discuss which documents might be released to the public.
In most murder cases, the public is entitled to see police reports, autopsy reports and other "discovery" documents when prosecutors deliver them to the defense.
The case is not likely to go to trial until the latter half of 2005.
